Final Serenity
by StarDrop5
Summary: Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Simon are on a basic money-making mission to Kerry, a desert planet. What happens when they get there and they find all the people dead? What does River do about it?
1. Chapter 1

It was the third day on an easy trip to Kerry. A scruffy, desert planet (Weren't they all?) with a few, dusty, run-down villages here and there. An easy trip to deliver a box or two of protein, and a cow. One cow. They didn't need any more herds of them.

Mal delicately landed Serenity on a plateau of sand and scrub. He deliberately set the boat down a good distance from the village, so that they didn't sneak over the hill and steal parts of his Firefly. It had happened before, and the ship had flown in circles until Wash got the piece back.

Simon, Zoe, Jayne, and he himself were about to carry the cargo (not the cow) over two miles of desert to get to the village. He figured he could have landed a _little_ closer, but he wasn't about to lift off and try again.

He walked down to the cargo bay, where Zoe carried one bag full of protein, Simon (reluctantly) carried the other, and Jayne led the cow.

"Why do I have to drive the cow?" Mal heard Jayne grumble as he walked by. It was obviously because Zoe was stronger than him (would he ever admit it?) and could carry more protein at once, and Simon- well, they needed his hands to have non-broken fingers, just in case something bad happened and they needed doctor stuff.

_Also,_ Mal thought privately, _I ain't gonna put up with his complainin' if that thing craps on his shiny shoes._

Kaylee saw them off. "Be careful, Simon!"

_No 'Be careful' for me?_ Mal thought, although he knew well why she had only said it to Simon, and he was fully prepared to accept the inevitable- if the two ever got around to it.

Simon told Inara to keep River safe, and then jogged to catch up with Mal, at the front of the group, and asked, "So, how far is this village?"

"Two miles, or so." Mal said conversationally.

Apparently struck speechless, Simon fell to the back of the group and silence fell over the little line of person, person, cow. Jayne seemed to particularly enjoy the silence, and Mal thought he could occasionally hear him muttering "Most _gorram_ silence we ever get around 'im." Probably referring to Simon.

They trudged- eventually- up the final rise and stopped at the top, looking down at the dirty, dry little village. To Mal, it seemed a little quiet. The last time he'd been here it had been a bustling mess of grimy people building, eating, selling anything they could get their hands on. This time, there didn't seem to be any motion. It was silent, dead. To Mal, this said _ambush,_ so he stopped and watched.

"What do you think, sir?" Zoe asked, knowing full well what he thought.

"Definitely gonna be a trap, or everyone down there is dead. Maybe we took too long getting the protein here." He watched for a flicker, a motion, any signal for a sniper to shoot them. Nothing happened.

"Should we go down, sir?"

"Yep."

Simon hurried to catch up with Mal and Zoe, who were going without Jayne because someone _capable_ (not Simon) needed to watch the supplies and the cow. The three slid down the incline, sand in their shoes, grimaces on their faces, and a look of abject fear on Simon's.

They reached the village in a plume of dust. Coughing, Mal plunged through it.

He couldn't see for a minute- just brown. Something appeared through the dust. A person? He waved, waved again, moved closer. The person's shape became clearer. He was bending over something.

Mal walked right up to him, shook his shoulder. Nothing happened. Was he asleep? Mal slapped the man's face. No reaction. He checked for a pulse. Nothing. His heart lurched. The man was slumped over at a table, looking for all the world like he was asleep, but he was very clearly dead.

Zoe appeared through the settling dust cloud and said in a steady voice, "They're all dead, sir."

"I was right." He said softly.

"About the ambush?"

"No, about the dead. They're all dead. Zoe, they've been murdered."


	2. Chapter 2

**I thank you all for your reviews! The first chapter I suppose should have been more like an ultimatum or a prologue or something, because it was pretty short, but there you go. By the way, this is set a while after the movie _Serenity,_ so if you haven't seen that, Wash and Shepherd Book are dead. It's kind of sad, but you learn more about River. You reviewers should watch it. Summer Glau (River) is totally awesome. **

**Special thanks to _Isefyr_ for being the only person logged in while reviewing my story. **

**Enjoy! :) StarDrop5**

While Mal, Zoe, and Simon were examining a village of dead bodies, and Jayne was cursing a cow, Inara and River were chatting.

River talked about her life with Simon, her life at home with the Tams. Inara talked about her relationship with Mal. They were helping each other learn new things about Simon and Mal, and Kaylee and Zoe, and Wash and Book, and each other. (They avoided the topic of Jayne.)

It was in the middle of Inara's discussion of how she could tell Simon and Kaylee liked each other that River grasped her head and curled into a ball. Inara was immediately concerned.

"River? Are you… okay?" She said softly, crouching next to her (she'd chosen to sit on the floor). River shook her head, tightly closing her eyes, and muttered, "They're all dead. Nothing… nothing… Simon needs to leave."

Inara was pretty confused by this broken statement, and more than a little confused by how River was acting, but she didn't show it. "River, sweetie, what's going on? Why does Simon need to leave?"

River curled herself tighter, taking her hands from her head and wrapping them around her legs, which were tucked under her chin. She looked earnestly at Inara. "Simon needs to come back. He needs to. Bring him back! Please."

Inara took this to mean that River thought Simon was in danger or something, and said, "Don't worry. They're coming back."

"No," River said firmly, as though she knew where Simon was. "No, they're not."

Inara nodded thoughtfully. "They will. They'll come back."

_Not if they don't come now,_ thought River, feeling Simon. He was worried, but not scared. He had no idea of the danger she felt all around him.

She got up, went to her bunk, put on her combat boots and a pair of slacks that had been Kaylee's, and went out. Right out, outside, onto the desert sand, where she sprinted as fast as she could toward Simon, Inara shouting behind her.

She'd find him in time.

{}{}{}{}{}

Mal examined the bodies they'd laid out. There were already 24 of them, which Mal thought was already too much. He and Zoe were laying them out, a grisly but possibly necessary job. Simon was inspecting them. So far, he had informed them that the people hadn't been shot, stabbed, burnt, had their skulls cracked, been poisoned, frozen, fallen from a great height, broken in two, boiled, burnt with acid, drowned, had simultaneous heart attacks, or any other grisly death you can think of. Basically, Simon had said, every single person in the village had died of old age at the same time, even a few babies they'd found.

Mal was in the process of pulling another one out of a shop when he heard footsteps. He turned, expecting to see Zoe with a report of some kind or something, and came face to face with River.

She brushed past him and sprinted down the line of bodies, to the end where Simon was crouching over one. Mal cursed under his breath and set off after her.

When he reached the end of the line, River was pulling on Simon, and he was trying to calm her down. She blathered nonsense about danger, something bad about to happen, and so on. Mal rolled his eyes as Simon said calmly, "What danger, _mei-mei?_"

Breathless, windblown and sunburnt, it took River a second to answer. Finally, she whispered, "Fire."

Zoe appeared around a corner, sprinting to Mal and Simon. She acknowledged River with her eyes, but was apparently in too much of a hurry to say anything. "Sir, there's a fire. A little one, in a hut... full of explosives. We might want to hurry away."

_Maybe the girl isn't completely mad,_ Mal thought, as he followed Zoe back to the top of the ridge and up to Jayne. No sooner had Simon crested the hill than they looked back and saw the village trapped under rolling flame. Jayne swore loudly, Simon gasped, River looked happy- she probably _was_ nuts- and Zoe turned to him and said, "Sir, might I suggest you radio Kaylee sooner than later?"

Right. The radio. He plucked it from his belt and said, "Kaylee? Ya there?"

There was a moment of silence, and then, cheerfully, "Done already, Cap? I was willing to bet the 'verse that you'd end up drinking and get another free wife."

Mal rolled his eyes, and said, "The mule, to the top of the ridge, as fast as you can."

"Shiny." He heard the radio on the other end click off, and he put his back in his belt.

"She's on her way," He told the worried crew around him. Well, Jayne didn't look too worried. Just grumpy.

Kaylee pulled up next to them 15 minutes later, and they all piled in. However, they'd only been on the way for two minutes before Simon smacked himself in the forehead.

"Whatever you just thought of, I like it." Jayne said.

"I should have brought one of the bodies back for professional examination!" Simon groaned, realizing far too late for any good.

"Bodies?" Kaylee asked perkily. "You guys kill someone?"

"No." Said Mal.

Kaylee smiled. "That's shiny."

{}{}{}{}{}

When they arrived at the ship, Inara got up and apologized to Simon. "I'm sorry! I was just talking with her and she ran out to get you. I don't really know what happened. She kept saying you were in danger."

Simon said, "She was right." He looked around. "Speaking of River, did you see where she went? I don't want her to run away or something. I think all those dead people we found scared her."

Inara shrugged. "No, I didn't see her… maybe she went to see Kaylee? I know they like to hang out."

Simon liked the idea of going to see Kaylee, River or not, so he set off toward her bunk, and knocked on her door. It slid back and revealed the ladder. "Come in?" He heard Kaylee's voice from below. He wasn't about to ignore an invitation like that. He started down the ladder, saying as he did so, "Hey, Kaylee. Is River in here? Only I can't…" He turned around and Kaylee was right there, smiling at him, like only Kaylee could. She was _so_ cute. Needless to say, River was forgotten for the time being, while Simon and Kaylee… erm… well, they were otherwise engaged.

Inara, feeling very guilty over the whole mess with River, because she thought it was her fault, thought it was her duty to look for her. Of course, Inara knew that if River didn't want to be found on this ship, she'd slip through a vent and vanish, and no one could find her if River didn't want it. She looked anyways, wondering if River would come out for her, because they were friends.

Two hours into her search, however, she had to agree that River was not going to come out that easily.

{}{}{}{}{}

Jayne wandered into the medical area, cursing the cut on his finger, which he'd given himself accidentally while playing with a fancy knife he'd found. He opened a drawer, where he'd expected to find the bandages. It was empty. Go figure. That doc was _gorram_ brain damaged, and he could prove it. He turned and opened the next drawer, and found that this, too was empty, except for a lone, empty syringe. Jayne, getting angry, took it out, looked at it, and flung it against the wall. It shattered in an explosion of sound.

He looked in all the drawers and cupboards and everywhere he could think of, but nowhere could he find just _one measly bandage._ Raging, Jayne stormed down the little hall and up the few stairs, around and straight to the guest quarters, where Simon, not knowing that Jayne was barreling angrily towards him, was dreamily thinking of Kaylee.

Jayne tossed open the door to Simon's room, glared at him, and said in a voice that was so angry it was practically hysterical, "What the _gorram_ heck did you do with the bandages!" It wasn't even a question.

Simon, completely bewildered, backed up and slammed into the wall. "Bandages? Aren't they in the medical area?"

"NO!" howled Jayne, madness glinting in his eyes. "_No gorram bandages, no medicine, no nothing! It's ALL GONE_!"

Shock in his eyes, Simon stepped forth, figuring out in seconds what must have happened. He wasn't a genius doctor for nothing. "Oh, no…" He mouthed silently, pushing past Jayne, who was gasping for breath, and walked to the medical area, slowly and gingerly.

In a second, he observed the mess Jayne had made, flinging drawers everywhere and leaving the cupboard doors open, and he saw how everything was empty. He crouched, carefully, next to the shattered fragments of the empty syringe and examined them, and finally, he looked up and saw the vent on the ceiling, with the metal grille that usually covered it gone.

He turned around and bumped into Jayne and Zoe, who'd heard the commotion and come to investigate. He looked, Zoe thought, like he'd just been hit by a mallet. He gaped, his mouth open, apparently at a complete loss for words.

Finally, he collected himself, looked once more at the shattered glass of the syringe, and said softly, "She's taken everything."

The air seemed to grow thick with the tension of the moment, as Zoe and Simon looked at each other and a hidden conversation seemed to pass between the two. Jayne sort of broke the solemnity of the moment by asking, "What, you mean the jelly-brain?


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks again to all who have reviewed since (a very long time ago) I posted. Don't kill me! What with school starting and stuff, I've been pretty lax. Can you forgive me? **

**No?**

**Thanks to the two people who logged in, Alesia G and LummPumm. You make my day. Or week. Or month. Or… you know, just read the story. **

**:•) Stardrop5**

Mal summed it up for everyone.

"So," He said, "Here's how it goes. River got a little upset when she saw all the dead people. Normally, that would be a-ok. But she ain't quite right, and she's taken all the medical supplies we have on the ship. On any normal transport- or any smuggler, come to think of it- that'd be fine, we'd hang out until we landed somewhere and we could get more. Unfortunately,-"

"Get on with it."

"Thank you, Jayne, for your opinion. As I was saying, _unfortunately,_ our crew is not normal. We seem to get shot a little more than usual. So we gotta find moonbrain, and fast."

Simon stood up, and Mal paused and met his eyes. Simon shook his head. Everyone stared at them.

"Started a _gorram_ secret code, I bet," Jayne muttered. Mal sat down and nursed his piece of chicken-shaped protein. Simon remained standing and started to talk quietly, although the crew wasn't really paying attention.

"Thing is, I think River went up into the ship. Into the air vents. Unless we have someone we can send after her, she's going to be very, very hard to find, and who knows where she put the supplies."

Simon seemed to notice that only Kaylee was paying him any attention. The rest of the crew was muttering, and Simon sat grumpily, red-faced.

Mal shouted for order and everyone but Jayne looked at him. "Here's what I propose. We go to Whitefall."

Zoe flinched. "How many times has Patience shot you? Do you really think that's smart, being all supplies-less, sir? Also, Whitefall is… pretty far away."

"Aw, she won't shoot me. Not after our display of awesomeness last time we were there. Anyways, where else do we go? Back to Kerry?"

{}{}{}{}{}

Of course, the trip was long and they weren't prepared for it. All they had was the protein they'd kept from the useless trip to Kerry. It would, Mal thought, be enough for the journey, but once they were there they would have to borrow some food from Patience.

Borrow. Hah.

Anyways, Mal was hopeful for the trip. At least, he was hopeful for the journey _there. _From then on, it looked pretty bleak. He twiddled with the dash controls, making sure they were going in an _absolutely _straight line towards Whitefall.

He thought about Patience. She _would_ probably shoot him again, but so what? He'd shoot her right back. No matter that the crew would probably kill him by accident, without supplies. No problem, he'd delegate to Jayne. He shuddered at the thought and readjusted the perfectly straight line to Whitefall.

That 'morning', they found River.

She was tucked up under some equipment, chin on her knees, arms hugging her legs to her. She completely ignored all the people around her, instead murmuring something about flowers. Simon pushed in front of a loudly protesting Jayne and crouched next to her. "Mei-mei, what's wrong?"

She looked at him, and her eyes focused. "Lost the medicine," she murmured. "Fell into the air vent and lost." She turned and looked at Mal. "Don't worry. I can- I can fix it."

_Amazing, _thought Mal. _She sounded lucid when she said that. _It wasn't like he believed her, but having a less-than-crazy genius around was more helpful than a crazy genius.

They landed on Whitefall two days later, with their protein just about gone. The tired crew trooped out into the sunlight, and Mal pointed towards a horizon.

"That's the way!" He shouted, making sure that Simon and Kaylee, who were looking at things, could hear him. "We walk that way for a while- just until that ridge, then we go down into a valley there."

They started off, a shambling troop of rather sleepy people in a line. Mal first, then Zoe, Simon, River, Kaylee, and last was Jayne. Inara had chosen to remain on the boat.

They reached the valley at the same time as Patience did. Mal had had a short and rather unsweet conversation with her over the comm, and she didn't look surprised or anything. She didn't have a gun, not that they could see, anyways. She smiled down at Mal from on her horse. "Ah, Mal!' she said. "You came to visit me. How… nice."

"Just for a while. Drop in on our favorite client."

"Of course. I'd be paying for food and board, hmm?"

"Uh, yeah."

"And your men… and women," she acknowledged. "They have guns?"

"Uh, yeah…"

Patience had a rifle trained on Mal faster than he could see where she pulled it from. She let out a humorless cackle. "Don't you see, Malcolm? You aren't my friend, and I don't trust you."

"That's kind of… obvious, ain't it? Big gun in my nose, no hospitality whatsoever. Ya wanna point that somewhere else?"

"No."

"Too bad. So, say I said I don't care if you shoot me. What would you do?"

Patience started to really laugh. "Not care? I'm willing to bet you have no supplies. Why else would you come to me? I don't think it's _possible_ not to care. In answer to your question, I'd still shoot you."

Going cross-eyed looking down the gun, Mal was out of ideas. All he could think was he _really, really _did not want Jayne to become captain. "Zoe?"

"Sir?"

"When she shoots, kill her."

"Yes, sir."

Patience found herself looking down three gun barrels, Zoe, Jayne and River. She pulled her rifle- and pointed it at Kaylee.

"You willing to let _her _die?"

Several things happened very fast.

Simon shouted "NO!" and threw himself in front of Kaylee, River stepped in front of Simon, Jayne and Zoe both shot Patience in the chest, and halfway from falling off her horse, she let a bullet fly.

Someone screamed, and in the ensuing chaos that followed, Mal tried to duck out of the way of anything flying at him. When the horse had galloped away, Patience fallen, and everyone settled, he could see through the dust. Someone had to be hit. Someone had screamed. It could have been anyone, even Jayne if he'd been hit in the balls.

He met everyone's eyes.

**Cliffy! Sooo sorry, I don't write stories with cliffies… except for this one. Who should be shot? Remember, the character's lives are in my foolish, clumsy hands. You don't want me to drop them, do you? Muahaha. **

**If you don't want your favorite character dead, press that review button and tell me who they are. **

**Please?**

**Stardrop**


	4. Chapter 4

**Oops. I have no clue if anyone is actually reading this story, because my few reviewers may have given up on me, but here's my update. It's way, way late, but everyone says that, so don't believe me. There's no excuse. I just didn't update, is all. **

**Anyways, here it is. Enjoy it. **

**StarDrop ;)**

Dust settled, and Mal performed a quick head count. Zoe. There was Kaylee, supporting a dizzy-looking Simon, but they didn't look seriously hurt. There was River, and there was Jayne.

Jayne was hunched over, and Mal was sure at first that he'd been hit, but no. He was staring in horror at a fragmented mess of metal at his feet, and Mal assembled it in his mind. A gun. A broken gun.

"Who's missing?" Mal called out, and Zoe scanned the area.

"No one, sir. We're all here. Uh, Jayne…"

"She's broken!" Jayne wailed, and Mal, bemused, peered closer at the splinters of metal and recognized Jayne's favorite handgun, a 56-tac Callister relock, one that he'd taken from an old enemy a while ago, a preference with him.

"Um… Jayne? You do realize you're calling a lifeless object _she_?" Kaylee piped up, and Jayne, not one to cross Kaylee, said only, "My favorite handgun… Susan…"

"You named a gun _Susan_?" The crew said incredulously, all in one, and Mal remembered Jayne's habit for naming his weapons, like Ana the fletched-spider knife and Lilly the semiautomatic-tac rifle. (Not to overlook Vera, his very favorite gun.)

"She ain't just any gun, ya know!" Jayne protested. "She's a 56-tac Callister relock with automatic targeting system and extra-wide trigger with a hairpin sensor. She's a great gun."

"I think you mean she _was_, Jayne," Mal said solemnly, trying desperately not to laugh. "She's dead, Jayne. Should we make a grave?"

"He screamed," River earnestly said, "He doesn't want to tell you, but it was him."

"_You _were the one that screamed? _Really?_" Mal was extremely interested. "You screamed because your little gun got broken?"

Jayne pulled in his shoulders, still looking grumpily at the shards of his handgun. "I got hit on the hand," he said sulkily. "You woulda screamed too."

{}{}{}{}{}

Back on the boat, Simon, after treating a slight concussion that had occurred when his head collided painfully with rock (River had given him a shove out of the way of Patience, but he really didn't have any balance, and had tripped on a stone) determined that Jayne hadn't actually been shot on the hand at all.

"He's just been nicked," He said to the cheerful crew. "He barely lost blood. I think all it did was trim his fingernails for him."

Everyone but Jayne found this hilariously funny, except for Jayne, of course, who barely came out of his bunk or he was laughed at. Mal led the crew in a procession to mourn the passing of Susan, the 'best 56-tac Callister relock with automatic targeting system and extra-wide trigger with a hairpin sensor there ever was', outside Jayne's bunk door, pinning flowers to it and singing horribly off-key, the only song they all knew: 'Happy Birthday'.

"Happy deathday to 'Susan'…"

Deep in his bunk, with a pillow over his head, plus his coat, blanket and most of his clothing, Jayne gritted his teeth and waited for an embarrassing revenge.

{}{}{}{}{}

They stayed on Whitefall for a while, taking anything they wanted from Patience's place, feeding and refueling and relaxing. Most of the crew had forgotten about the tragedy that had occurred on Kerry. Most, but not all.

Mal knew that whatever had happened on Kerry had been bad, had been something he'd seen before- but he couldn't put his finger on it. All he could think was that the Alliance was messing around with perfectly legitimate illegal smuggling, and that wasn't quite right he could tell.

He made up his mind about Kerry late that night, when the crew was asleep in Patience's spacious rooms. He couldn't sleep, thinking about it. Who did he know who would be so evil as to blow up an innocent town of Kerrans? He _knew_ who it was… subconsciously. He didn't actually have a name in his mind. You could say it was on the tip of his tongue.

The next morning, crew gathered around at a table eating all of Patience's vegetables and stored meat (they all were under the opinion that Patience certainly would never need it again, and they'd had nothing to eat other than tasteless protein for so long, and by that time they'd already buried their faces in her strawberry patch) and chatting. Mal waited for a break in the general conversation, and he cleared his throat.

The crew paused, looked up at him expectantly, and he began. "You know what happened on Kerry was bad. I've seen slaughter, but somethin' about this one makes me think about someone I can't quite put my finger on. I think I need to go back."

Everyone started talking at once. Mal raised his hand for silence the way he'd seen other people in power do, and to his amazement, it worked. Simon and Kaylee even stopped making sheep eyes at each other to look at him.

"I didn't say 'we', I said 'I'. If y'all want, I can drop you off somewhere, where you can wait for me if you want, and I can go to Kerry on my own."

He gave them a minute to confer.

"So," he said, once they'd conferred, "Who wants to come with me, and who am I dropping off on Canton?"

"I'm comin' with you, them ruttin' mudders!" Jayne growled. Everyone looked at him.

"I'm coming, sir."

"I will come with you as well."

"I'm not leaving River with you. I'm coming."

"Me, too!"

"I won't be much of a help, Mal, but I'll come."

"Great!" Mal looked at his crew, all joining him on this potentially dangerous mission to the ugliest planet in existence (except for Canton), and smirked evilly.

"Right, then, let's go!"

Listening to the crew protest that _no, they didn't want to go right now, let's stay a little longer, the strawberries are so good,_ Mal smiled. This was going to be a fun trip.

**Read on, it gets better! Well, you could read on if I'd uploaded the next chapter yet, but I haven't, so we have to end with an evil Mal smirk. **

**You there- yeah, you reading this story, I know you're there, I can see your eyes- just take that mouse, move it a little, and press that review button.**

**Until next chappie!**


End file.
